Maintenance Yard Expansion Plans Put On Hold

Thu., Feb. 6, 1997

By Jonathan Martin jonathanm@spokesman.com

Plans to expand a maintenance yard in the Logan neighborhood into the city’s operations headquarters are on hold, awaiting a nod from the City Council.

The city must approve money to study the traffic impacts. The estimated cost of the study is $50,000.

The proposed facility would be east of Hamilton along North Foothills Drive. The site currently houses the city’s water, fleet services and solid waste departments.

The proposed expansion would include transportation, construction and purchasing services. The number of employees would leap from 315 to 534, and the number of vehicles would nearly double, to about 430.

The facility is strongly opposed by neighborhood residents, who say it will bring pollution, traffic and noise to their residential neighborhood.

Leaders of the Nevada-Ligerwood neighborhood north of Logan and the Emerson-Garfield neighborhood west of Logan also oppose the idea.

“That would be our strength, if several neighborhoods joined together” to fight the proposal, said Jeanette Harras, president of the Logan neighborhood steering committee.

City staff say the proposal is still preliminary and other sites are being considered. The planning commission recently said the city council should decide on one site before spending any more public time or money on plans.

The city has already spent more than $350,000 investigating five options. The city says it must expand current, crowded facilities and replace aging oil tanks before the end of 1998.

But Logan appears to be the choice site, with almost half of a recent city-issued information packet concentrating on a maintenance yard in that neighborhood.

The most pressing issues with the Logan option - traffic and air quality issue - have gotten kid glove treatment.

Dick Raymond, city public works director, said air quality concerns could kill the project. Air quality monitors on North Hamilton have registered high air pollution, helping garner Spokane status as a national pollution hot spot.

“Just because we have spent money (on the Logan proposal) does not imply that we have committed to the site,” said Raymond. “On first glance it may seem that way, but it’s not true.”

Harras and other neighborhood leaders are awaiting a city council decision on the proposal.

“I haven’t given up hope,” she said.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Graphic: Proposed City of Spokane Maintenance Facility

MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: TALK SCHEDULED The Logan steering committee is hosting Molly Myers, head of the city’s Office of Neighborhood Services, on Feb. 18, from 7 to 7:30 p.m. at 525 E. Mission. Myers will give a presentation on the city’s neighborhood council program.

This sidebar appeared with the story: TALK SCHEDULED The Logan steering committee is hosting Molly Myers, head of the city’s Office of Neighborhood Services, on Feb. 18, from 7 to 7:30 p.m. at 525 E. Mission. Myers will give a presentation on the city’s neighborhood council program.

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